Today’s post in our pet food series focuses on federal oversight of pet food. At the federal level, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates pet food similar to that for other animal foods. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&CA) requires that all animal foods, like human foods, be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances and be truthfully labeled. In addition, canned pet foods must be processed in conformance with the low acid canned food regulations to ensure the pet food is free of viable microorganisms.
The FD&CA was amended in 2011 with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which created new requirements and mandatory product safety standards for US pet food manufacturers. The focus under the FSMA is the prevention of illness, rather than reacting to and correcting issues that have already occurred. The FSMA provides the FDA with authority to conduct facility inspections to verify compliance.
In brief, under the FD&CA and the FSMA, pet food manufacturers must:
- Implement current good manufacturing practices that include requirements for employees, facility design, equipment upkeep and maintenance;
- Identify and evaluate hazards (biological, chemical or physical) that may be associated with foods they make and put into place preventative controls that address those hazards;
- Develop and implement a food safety plan detailing steps taken to ensure product safety (from sourcing to product recall, if necessary);
- Comply with FSMA requirements regarding foreign suppliers and sanitary transportation for both finished pet food/treats as well as ingredients.
Below are some of the major areas governed by FDA regulations under the FD&CA and FSMA.
Ingredients
The FDA ensures that the ingredients used in pet food are safe and have an appropriate function in the pet food. Many ingredients such as meat, poultry and grains are considered safe and do not require pre-market approval. Other substances, such as sources of minerals, vitamins or other nutrients, flavorings, preservatives or processing aids may be Generally Recognized As Safe for an intended use or must have approval as food additives. Colorings must also have approvals for such use.
Since 2007, the FDA and the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) collaborated on approval of pet food (and other animal food) ingredients, pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The FDA recently announced that their MOU with AAFCO will expire on October 1, 2024. Although the precise role the FDA will play after October 1, remain unanswered, the FDA has made clear that it—not AAFCO and its Ingredients Definition Committee—will be responsible for establishing the pre-market pet food ingredient approval guidelines, including responsibility for conducting the scientific review of all new ingredients.
We are teaming up with our friends at Pet Food Compliance to discuss this update and other hot topics during our September consumer markets webinar.
Labeling
The current FDA regulations require proper identification of the product, net quantity statement, name, place of business of the manufacturer or distributor and proper listing of all the ingredients in the product from most to least, based on weight.
Inspection and compliance
The FDA, along with state regulatory partners, perform risk-based inspections to ensure that pet food is manufactured, processed, packed and held in a manner that prevents contamination or adulteration. In its inspections, the FDA evaluates whether a facility is implementing practices necessary to meet all the animal food regulatory requirements that apply at their facility. To determine what facilities to inspect, the FDA considers whether there is an ongoing compliance concern, the nature of the animal food, nature of the hazards associated with the animal food and the time since last inspection. When the FDA determines that a pet food facility is not in compliance with regulatory requirements, it deploys a regulatory strategy that first encourages voluntary corrective actions. However, the FDA also enforces the law through advisory actions (including regulatory meetings, untitled letters and warning letters) and administrative or judicial actions (including FDA-requested recall, mandatory recall, administrative detention, suspension of food facility registration, withdrawal of qualified facility exemption, seizure, injunction and criminal prosecution).